Acid rose in her throat. How did he know her name? She hadn’t told him. She knew she hadn’t.
It was like the diner in New York all over again.
“Get out of here.” It was more of a shriek this time. “Call the police. I’m—”
She heard a grunt, then nothing.
Trust your instincts.
Moving fast, Wendy shoved the hip-pack out of the way, pushed the kayak into the lake and ran in after it, ignoring the shock of the cold water. She floated the kayak into water up to her knees, then grabbed the paddle and dropped into the cockpit butt-first. The bow struck an underwater rock, but she pushed off from it with the paddle, using it for leverage to get her farther from shore.
Paddling as quickly as she could, she steered the kayak past the rocky point that she loved so much, ducks ignoring her, in their own peaceful little world in the shallow cove. She stayed in deeper water. She was headed in the opposite direction of Juliet’s campsite, but she didn’t care—her first priority was to get out of sight of anyone on the path to the spring.
As she passed the point, Wendy heard thrashing in the woods, as if a bear were tearing out toward the lake.
What if Ham was being attacked by a wild animal? She should help him.
But he’d screamed for her to run, and to call the police, and it wasn’t a bear who’d told him her name. Unless he’d known it all along and the shouting and the thrashing were some big fake-out.
Her instincts told her they weren’t. Besides, it didn’t matter; she wasn’t going back there.
Wendy paddled furiously. She focused on using her shoulders to power her strokes, careful to maintain her center of gravity and not overturn the kayak. She didn’t look back.
She needed to get to a telephone.
There were two houses on the lake, one behind her—past the spring—and one up ahead. She couldn’t remember if either had a phone, but the one up ahead was closer. It was owned by a family from New Jersey. They’d had some landscaping done over the summer, and Wendy had helped her uncles plant apple trees and fix a problem with drainage. They were nice people. And yes, she thought, they had a phone—she remembered Uncle Will asking to borrow it, because his cell phone didn’t work out there.
By the time she reached the house, Wendy’s shoulders ached, and she was gasping, totally out of breath. She lifted her paddle out of the water and let the kayak glide toward shore, then felt it scraping the rocks, until it finally hooked among them and stopped. She jumped into knee-high water and grabbed Ham’s hip-pack, slinging its wide strap over her shoulder as she waded onto the shore.
The house was painted a dark evergreen and had a screened porch that overlooked the lake. Wendy tried the porch door. Of course, it was locked. She went around back to the glass door there, but it, too, was locked. She didn’t hesitate—she found an empty clay flowerpot and smashed the glass on the front door, then gingerly reached in and flipped the simple lock on the knob.
She was shivering, her pants soaked from her thighs down. As she pushed open the door and ran inside, she felt her running shoes squishing, tracking up the rugs and wood floor.
When she reached the kitchen, which opened out onto the porch, Wendy grabbed the telephone off the wall next to the stove.
It was dead. Not even a dial tone. The owners must have had it shut off for the season.
She fought back tears. The receiver fell off the hook, and she just left it hanging as she set Ham’s pack on the kitchen table. Now what? She needed to get her bearings.
She took out the bottle of spring water and opened it, her hands shaking. She hadn’t had anything to eat since the apple crisp last night. She gulped down the water, digging deeper into the pack, in case Ham had a cell phone that she could get to work.
She came up with a soft, drawstring bag made of suede in a deep maroon. It looked as if it’d come from a jewelry store.
Odd.
Almost grateful for something else to think about, Wendy tugged the bag open and saw that it was stuffed with what looked like little bubble-wrapped packages. Using her thumb and forefinger, she pulled one out. It was taped shut, but she could see a shiny green stone inside.
She dumped out more of the little packages onto the table. Each one protected a green stone. She pried the tape off one and unwrapped it, and a smooth, beautiful, spring-green stone rolled out onto her palm. It felt incredible against her skin. She held it up to the window and saw a bluish tint, but the green was deep and clear.
An emerald?
Was Ham a thief?
She was tired and hungry and thirsty, and now she wished she’d left the pack back at the spring. What if Ham thought she’d stolen it?